The R Word

It's starting to hurt both ways. The average person is not racist. No kind person is racist. The thought of feeling superior to another beautiful race in God's creation belies any sense of humanity. Racism is deep ignorance, it exposes boorish isolation from the world and desolation of the soul.

How many people do you know personally like that?

Yes, it exists. But the accusations are flying. Maybe R stands for retaliation. Horrifyingly, we did behave this way in the past in our country. We know the history. The long, long history. The unthinkable history. But along came angels of wisdom like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Along came some brave celebrities like Sammy Davis, Jr. and Mohamed Ali to blaze the path to righteousness. A path first sprinkled by the likes of Louie Armstrong and Sidney Poitier. A path followed by so many, many black we adore since. They transformed our nation. Eyes were opened and the natural brotherhood of love was restored. Our country slipped into right.

As a country we have stayed there. Look around. We love, we accept. We both do. We all do. In all directions. We now have more races and diverse nationals than ever and there is peace. Peace by transformation.

But what was that bump in the road? Black Lives Matter. BLM was a movement paid in full. A hired army with bats and blow torches. It was led by some wealthy, destitute frontmen who needed a fake cause to define their egos. While hiding. The crowds who then engaged have a price to pay. They followed their friends in an ill-conceived cause to scream and make demands at society for their own doubts and downfalls. Not to mention taking to the streets with weapons. It was the day the tables turned. We went from unthinkable white hoods and night fire to to unthinkable black hoodies and night fire. What shame.

BLM was a movement of coercion. And maybe all these historical horrors are. But we are answerable for our own actions, good or bad.

No country is perfect, no culture is perfect and no people are perfect. And no human gets by without some form of hurtful, inexcusable judgment. It is deeply sad to be the object of even subtle racism. But the horror of riot is no fix. And while there were pains, there was no cause. America is not racist. Look around.

There is no excuse for people of color passing blame for deflated lives, if that is what they're feeling. We all make our own success in this country. Neither engaging the entire country in venom, nor insisting on propped up credentials or special treatment is American. In this country you are what you earn. And no one can pass that to you or take it away.

Unconscionably, the media caught on. The twisted, secret media-masters dictated every word out of the mouths of news anchors. Next thing we knew guilt followed suit. Invented crimes and transgressions were cried over. We wished we weren't white. We were taught new racist triggers to appreciate and evade. Even worse, they were taught to our children. It caught fire in college where higher learning took on new meaning. It was dark and useless.

The money ran out and the plot ended. Have there been riots since? No. Are we less racist for it? We weren't racist to begin with. The flurry ran its course.

How many racists do you know, personally? In America we love black people. A long, long list of celebrities and athletes are in all our hearts. We democratically elected a black President who we loved. We splashed pictures of his wife on the cover of magazines for a decade.

But still, we are called racist.